The Dream

Cass was standing alone in the Oriental Department of the British Museum. She was admiring a beautiful golden statute of Parvati. In the glass she saw the reflection of Jason behind her. She did not turn, just reached out to the glass towards the reflection. “I thought I would find you here, my beautiful thing by the other most beautiful thing in this place.”

“Where have you been?” she murmured. Jason slid his familiar bearlike arm around her, pulling her back towards him. She closed her eyes and could smell him.

“Sorry I have been stuck on the Tube,” he apologised.

“No you haven’t, where have you been? I have been looking for you everywhere.”

“Don’t be like that. I got caught up. I am here now, lets go and have some fun.”

They wandered the halls, holding hands, giggling at people’s reactions to the naughty Roman artefacts. They talked as they always had done about history. The fact that all religions appear to be interlinked with similarities, like language. How religion was an early form of politics and how history repeats. They pushed through tourists in the Egyptian Department into the Glass Atrium. Cass loved looking at the enormous glass ceiling grid. The atrium always gave Cass the feeling of being on the brink of reality, like a 90’s Play Station Game with a glitch.

Jason kissed Cass. He mounted the marble stairs of the Reading Room, “I will meet you up there.”

Cass was confused,“I’m coming with you.” She tried to step onto the stairs, but the marble floor seemed to melt, sucking down her leg like quicksand. She looked up and saw that triangular panes of glass were melting like ice and falling in huge globules down onto the viscus floor. Everything was disintegrating and Jason was gone.